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Coffee-drinkers willing to pay more for latte art

Consumers are willing to pay “significantly more” for their coffees if they’re decorated with latte art, a new study shows.

The study, released in the Journal of Sensory Studies, illustrates an experiment where consumers were given nearly identical lattes–one with latte art, and the other without—and were asked to name how much they’d expect to pay for each.

It turns out that foam art decorated java seems much more valuable to consumers than an unadorned latte. The experiments found that people were willing to pay 11%-13% more for latte art on their coffees.

The participants were also asked to rate various characteristics of photos of coffees shown to them and the photo showing a latte with art was also thought to be more intense in flavour and thus better quality.

The reason people are willing to pay more for lattes with art is because they believe they’re paying for the higher effort and skill of the barista, according to the study.

Here are some popular coffee houses in Canada and what they charge for a small latte:

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